Q1 2025 Blade Air Mobility Inc Earnings Call
Speaker Change: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Blade Air Mobility First Quarter 725 Earnings Release Conference Call. At this time, all participants are no snowly mode.
Speaker Change: Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instruct them to follow at that time.
As a reminder, this call has been recorded.
Speaker Change: I would like to turn the call over to Matt Snyder, Vice President of Investor Relations as Strategic Finance. Matt, you may begin.
Speaker Change: Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Blade Air Mobility conference call and webcast for the quarter-ended March 31st, 2025. We appreciate everyone joining us today.
Speaker Change: Before we get started, I would like to remind you of the company's forward-looking statements and see it far over language.
Speaker Change: Statements made in this conference call that are not historical facts, including statements about future time periods, may be deemed a constitute forward-looking statement within the meaning of the Private Security's litigation reform act of 1995.
Speaker Change: These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual future results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.
Speaker Change: We refer you to our SEC filings, including our annual report on Forbes 10K, filed with the SEC for more detailed discussion of the risk factors that could cause these differences.
Speaker Change: During today's call. We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe may be useful in evaluating our financial performance.
Speaker Change: A reconciliation of the most directly historical comparable consolidated GAAP financial measures to those historical non-GAAP financial measures is provided in our earnings press release and Investor presentation.
Speaker Change: Our press release Investor presentation, and Form 10-Q, and 10-Q filings are available on the Investor Relations section of our website at IR <unk> Dot com.
Speaker Change: These non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation or a substitute for financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP.
Speaker Change: Hosting todays call are Rob Wingo, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Blade and.
Burke: Well, Hey, Burke Chief Financial Officer.
Speaker Change: Now I'll turn the call over to Rob.
Rob Wingo: Thank you, Matt and good morning, everyone. We are pleased to report an excellent start to the year with revenue growth of 11%, excluding Canada, and a $2 $3 billion a year over year improvement in adjusted EBITDA, our strength in the passenger segment. This quarter was particularly notable with segment revenue growing 42% year over year, excluding <unk>.
Rob Wingo: <unk>, which we exited in August 'twenty 'twenty, four and our very first segment adjusted EBITDA profitable first quarter since going public our strong passenger segment results reflects several factors, including our durable competitive positioning along with the important actions, we've taken recently to improve profitability.
Rob Wingo: It is their exit from Canada, and broad based cost rationalization initiatives I'm, particularly encouraged by the results in Europe, following a restructuring, which led to strong revenue growth and significantly improved profitability. This quarter passenger segment adjusted EBITDA improved by $2 $7 million in the current quarter versus the prior year.
Rob Wingo: And on a trailing 12 month basis rose to $6 3 million as of Q1 2025.
Rob Wingo: Up from $3 6 million in Q4 2024.
Rob Wingo: We're also happy to deliver medical results ahead of our guidance this quarter, while we successfully launched surface with two new large hospitals on April one as expected contributing to an all time record for trip volumes in April.
Rob Wingo: Our medical business remains well positioned to prosper in the current environment given the strength of our logistics platform strong underlying transplant volume growth limited economic sensitivity and installation from tax.
Rob Wingo: We continue to expect improving results throughout the rest of the year in both business lines in medical we are onboarding additional new hospitals, and expect continued growth with existing hospitals, particularly given the strong industry transplant volume numbers, we've been seeing in passenger while the economic outlook may be uncertain, we still expect ongoing year over year benefits from.
Rob Wingo: Cost and restructuring actions as we will not anniversary our implementation of most items until the fourth quarter of this year on.
Rob Wingo: On the supply side, having now completed a rapid period of aircraft acquisitions, we are focused on improving the operational and financial performance of the fleet.
Rob Wingo: Following a period of unusually heavy scheduled aircraft maintenance and associated downtime during the first half of 2025, we expect a significant improvement in the second half of the year through 2026, resulting in reduced capital expenditures and improve medical segment adjusted EBITDA margins.
Rob Wingo: Passenger had a very strong start to the year as we previously covered exceeding our internal projections, while we are not changing our guidance for the passenger segment. We are very focused on the potential impact of economic uncertainty along with the impact of the recent helicopter tour incident.
Rob Wingo: I would like to take a moment to address this event blade does not offer tourist flights in the United States and this highlights the importance of our safety team and related parameters restrictions and audits they require of our dedicated operators beyond our regular audits blade requires our operators to maintain numerous standards that.
Rob Wingo: Seed the requirements of the FAA for example, the minimum number of pilots flight hours for tourists can be as little as 150 hours to fly her blade or minimum pilot hours or 800, or 1000 hours, depending on the type of rotorcraft flown during those hours.
Rob Wingo: We also have a minimum number of hours pilots must fly in the New York area Aerospace before flying for blade or full time five member safety team works with our operators and both our passenger and medical businesses every day turning to the macro outlook that we're mindful that several airlines have highlighted softening travel fundamentals.
Airlines have also reported continued growth in premium seats sales, which is particularly relevant for blades higher end flyer base given the seasonal nature of the passenger business volumes are typically low in April and start to pick up in may. So we'll have much greater visibility into underlying demand over the coming weeks and months.
Rob Wingo: Regarding the helicopter tourism incident past experience leads us to believe that this will have a transitory impact on demand for our New York area of services, we have seen a moderate impact from the incident in April but as mentioned this is on a seasonally low short distance revenue base and we are already seeing improvement.
Rob Wingo: Lastly in passenger it's important to note the actions we've taken to improve profitability across the passenger segment, our restructuring in Europe, our exit from Canada and cost efficiency initiatives remain a key driver of passenger segment adjusted EBITDA results in 2025, as we will not anniversary our implementation of most of these items until the fall.
Rob Wingo: Quarter of this year.
Rob Wingo: Despite any short term variability is now more clear that our passenger segment is very well positioned for the transition from helicopters TUI VTOL over the midterm due to our scale strong brand technology stack and proprietary infrastructure and the key vertical transportation markets we serve.
Rob Wingo: We remain excited about the future for blade passenger and believe it serves a growing economic resilient customer base.
Rob Wingo: We continue to focus on the disciplined allocation of our shareholders' capital evaluating additional investments in aircrafts and vehicles in the medical business along with acquisitions in medical that can strengthen our competitive position or expand our logistics platform with $120 million in cash and short term investments as at the end of Q1, we believe.
Rob Wingo: <unk>, we are well positioned to capitalize on such opportunities with that I'll turn it over to will.
Will: Thank you Rob I'll now walk through the financial highlights from the quarter, starting with passenger excluding Canada, which we exited in August 2024 short distance revenue increased 28, 1% year over year, driven primarily by growth in Europe.
Will: We view the European improvement as being a direct result of our restructuring, which not only reduce cost significantly, but also streamline operations, leading to a better and more efficient experience for our customers, particularly for the hotel concierge is in travel agents will make up a large portion of our European bookings and jet and other revenue increased 60% year.
Will: Year over year, driven by strength in both flight volume and revenue per flight.
Will: We saw another quarter of significant passenger segment profitability improvement in Q1 2025, as we achieved the segments first adjusted EBITDA profitable first quarter since going public this.
Will: This was driven by an 840 basis point improvement in slight margin along with a 16% reduction in passenger segment adjusted SG&A. This profitability improvement in passenger was broad based driven by improvements in short distance the restructuring in Europe growth in jet and other our exit from Canada, and SG&A cost efficient.
Will: Please.
Will: Turning to our medical business.
Will: Medical revenue came in roughly flat year over year at $35 9 million as we discussed on our Q4 2024 earnings call. In March there are several factors impacting air revenue in the first half of 2025, we saw heightened variability in monthly medical revenue growth trends during Q1 with low single digit year over year growth in <unk>.
Will: January followed by year over year decline in February medical revenue growth resumed in March and we're happy to report that in April we set an all time monthly volume record, partially driven by the launch of two new customers on April one as expected.
Will: We expect to build on this momentum with additional customer onboarding in the back half of the year.
Will: Our strategy executed throughout 2024 is to increase the size of our dedicated fleet and position aircraft closer to our customers.
Will: Are more confident today that this is the right strategy that results in lower cost and shorter call at times for our customers and enables a meaningful pricing advantage versus our competition.
Will: Natural resolve this strategy is a reduction in block hours per trip until we anniversary the increased dedicated fleet size in the second half of 2025, and we saw this negative impact in Q1 2025.
Will: It is important to note that while there is a modest revenue impact from the strategy. There's an improvement in average profitability per trip along with the competitive benefits referenced earlier.
Will: Finally ground in tops revenue continued their strong growth this quarter compared to the prior year period.
Will: Medical segment profitability declined on a year over year basis, primarily due to elevated scheduled maintenance downtime on our own fleet during the quarter as expected and discussed on last quarter's call. Our own fleet generally provides us with the best unit economics on both the P&L and cash basis, when we experienced above average down to.
Will: There are two primary negative impacts in the period, one, though we continue to perform all trips for our customers as contracted we substitute higher cost non dedicated aircrafts from our network.
Will: We are unable to amortize the fixed cost of our own fleet like pilots on as many flight ops, resulting in a higher fully loaded average cost per flight hour on the owned fleet during periods of elevated maintenance downtime as a result medical segment adjusted EBITDA margin fell 80 basis points year over year to 11.
Will: One 4%.
Will: The year over year increase in medical segment, adjusted SG&A is related to our own fleet, which did not exist in the prior year period as previously communicated we expect reduced scheduled maintenance in the second half of 2025 and 2026 to result in reduced capital expenditures and improved adjusted EBITDA margins.
Will: Moving to unallocated corporate expense and software development, we continue to focus on cost efficiencies across the business and during the quarter. Our expenses rose just modestly about one 6% year over year on a cash flow prime the difference between our Q1 adjusted EBITDA of negative $1 2 million and cash from.
Will: Operations of negative <unk> 2 million in the quarter was primarily driven by an increase in deferred revenue, partially offset by working capital bills.
Will: Capital expenditures inclusive of capitalized software development costs were $3 2 million in the quarter, driven primarily by capitalized aircraft maintenance of approximately $1 5 million and $7 million of aircraft acquisition payments. We currently have 10 aircraft in operation and continue to focus on optimizing the financial and <unk>.
Will: Operational performance of the fleet given.
Will: Given the significant strategic and financial benefits of our owned aircraft, we expect to add a low single digit number of aircraft to the fleet over the next year or two but are not currently in the process of buying any aircrafts.
Will: As previously discussed we now use D with hope to cover method for taxes do you want to employee stock based compensation with this method, we pay taxes do unemployed shares off the balance sheet and then withhold the equivalent number of shares reducing the number of shares to become outstanding given the large number of expiring employee.
Will: <unk> auctions, we were able to deploy $4 3 million during the quarter, which resulted in withholding approximately one 5 million shares at an average price of approximately 291.
Will: We ended the quarter with no debt and a $120 million of cash and short term investments providing flexibility for strategic investments in aircraft and acquisitions in medical.
Will: Turning to the 2025 outlook, we are reiterating our revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance for the year.
Will: Starting with medical we continue to expect double digit revenue growth for the year following a tough comp here in Q1.
Will: After moderating throughout 2024 heart liver and lung industry transplant volume growth has been strong year to date rising 7% year over year. As we mentioned previously 2025, new customer starts are weighted towards the second half of the year for us and we've had a strong start this quarter with two.
Will: New customers driving great results in April.
Will: After a flattish result in Q1 2025, we expect single digit medical revenue growth in Q2, 2025 with strong growth in the second half of the year driven by the ramp up of new customers and an easing comparison basis.
Will: We continue to expect medical segment, adjusted EBITDA margins to be approximately 15% for the year, along with the risk that margins could come in slightly below our full year target due to the timing of maintenance completed during the year.
Will: As we discussed last year, we expect maintenance downtime to remain elevated in Q2, 25% and moderate in the second half of the year as such medical segment. Adjusted EBITDA margins are expected to improve versus Q1 2025, but remained below our full year target in Q2, 2025 with margins rising above our full year.
Will: Target in the second half of the year.
Rob Wingo: Rob addressed the heightened level of macro uncertainty and passenger earlier, though it's too early to tell if this will have any discernible impact on our higher end consumer we are confident in the flexibility of our asset light model to quickly respond to any variations in demand, while maintaining flight profit margins.
Rob Wingo: Moving on we continue to expect adjusted unallocated corporate expenses and software development declined slightly year over year in 2025, and we continue to expect to generate positive free cash flow before aircraft acquisitions barring any large unforeseen nonrecurring items with that I'll turn it back over to the operator for <unk>.
Rob Wingo: M&A.
Rob Wingo: Thank you if you'd like to ask a question. Please press star one one.
Rob Wingo: If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue. Please press star one again.
Speaker Change: Our first question comes from Jason <unk> with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.
Jason: Hey, Thanks, good morning, everybody. So if I kind of wanted to unpack I guess right in kind of the.
Rob Wingo: The themes for this year.
Rob Wingo: On passenger its improved profitability, obviously, it's unfortunate what happened in April in New York, but I think <unk> seen the patterns around that.
Rob Wingo: And then on the medical mobility, it's absorbing just maybe some of the whether it was on forecasted maintenance to kind of absorbing that and kind of <unk>.
Rob Wingo: Seeing that follow through in the back half, but I mean, if we take a step back like genetically.
Rob Wingo: Any thoughts as to what investors should be thinking about as we're kind of we work our way through the year exiting the year.
Rob Wingo: More changes around the strategic direction around New York Airport.
Rob Wingo: Any more partnership.
Rob Wingo: Type of unlock I guess, just how should investors be thinking about blade like really is almost like as they're thinking about 2006 and kind of what the next unlock is assuming we hopefully get through the next period largely.
Rob Wingo: Unscathed from a macro standpoint, thank you.
Rob Wingo: Thanks, Jason.
Speaker Change: Could you ask your voice I'll, maybe start off on the passenger side and we'll take the medical side I think this year is going to be moving forward is definitely going to be driven by increased velocity performance in Europe for sure I think there's a long road as you know little took a little longer than we expected, but really feel like we're right.
Rob Wingo: On all eight cylinders right now.
And when I, even take a look at things like Monaco Grand Prix.
Rob Wingo: I see.
Rob Wingo: Good good.
Rob Wingo: <unk> sells its a little bit early.
Rob Wingo: Bookings in south of France look strong.
Rob Wingo: And then also in May.
Rob Wingo: And then the U S in terms of leisure markets.
Rob Wingo: What is that just the hamptons.
Rob Wingo: On the pre sales as well and I think that.
Rob Wingo: Our view is that there is going to be economic resilience to the economic strategy that we cater to and all of these leisure markets.
Rob Wingo: So we feel we feel good about that.
Rob Wingo: And then on the partnership front.
Speaker Change: Thank you youre going to Hell.
Rob Wingo: Hopefully see.
Rob Wingo: Some more airline partnerships, whether it be domestically or.
Rob Wingo: Overseas, which helps to drive.
Rob Wingo: Not only awareness, but allows people to do things like use their points and such and that's also credit card deals on a kind of a credit card deals and the airlines and the same.
Rob Wingo: In the same boat. Additionally, we've come up with a whole bunch of different path as we're learning that whether you call. It membership our passes.
Rob Wingo: People like us.
Rob Wingo: And.
Rob Wingo: It's too.
Rob Wingo: And then also a lot of added value services in terms of things, we can latch on to.
Rob Wingo: Different types of flights, making it easier to put cars, making it easier to move your luggage if you need to do that as well. So I think that and also and also we are using a lot more data to manage price. So I think youre going to see a lot more dynamic pricing I hope. This is a year of dynamic pricing in a very strong way John.
Rob Wingo: I mean extremely intelligent way using.
Rob Wingo: Using tools, such as AI and others to really try to maximize utilization of our flights.
Rob Wingo: Those are I think kind of the highlights then I'll, let passenger will take medical.
Speaker Change: Thanks, Jason a couple of thoughts on the medical side of things first to your comment on maintenance.
Speaker Change: Time based and we talked about it on the last quarter call that we expected to see elevated levels. There. So in a way we can be a little bit of a victim of our own success. The mortgage slide quicker that maintenance comes in it's all coming overlapping try to avoid as much as possible, but sometimes just the patterns of flying and steps that you have a number.
Speaker Change: <unk> of aircraft down all at once so we talked about last quarter.
Speaker Change: Double the amount of maintenance downtime that you would expect if you just took the linear distribution of when it should be across the 10 aircraft that we own and so we'll be through the woods on that once we get into the second half of next year.
Speaker Change: As it relates specifically to 2025 is the strategy that we started on last year to get more dedicated aircrafts closer to our customers as you compare this Q1 and <unk> 25 for Q1 'twenty four we have 50% more dedicated aircraft in this period versus last period.
Speaker Change: And so we think we've delivered a lot better service to our customers we've reduced the repositioning we've shortened the fall at times, but as we've talked about you eliminate some repositioning that creates somewhat of a revenue headwind for us it's absolutely strategically the right move and we're actually making more profit dollars per trip this way, while saving our customers.
Speaker Change: Money, but we lapped that starting when we get into the second half of this year and then when we kind of think into.
Speaker Change: The longer term end of this year going into next year and even the year. After we continue to see more competition and their perfusion space, that's bringing down the cost for hospitals to go after more organs, we think thats been a driver of some of the strong growth <unk> seen in the industry transplant volumes and.
Speaker Change: It really points to the long term viability and and the superiority of our strategy to be completely agnostic as to what clinical decisions our customers minds might make in terms of using this perfusion devices that profusion device or choosing to use in our key normal.
Eric: Eric Regional perfusion.
Speaker Change: Go and recovery at <unk>.
Speaker Change: So we want to be the best partner for our customer irrespective of what they use and we're about to enter into a world where there's a lot more options for our customers on the medical side, which we think are both increased volumes increased trip lengths and put us in a stronger competitive position.
Jason just two things I was remiss in measuring.
Speaker Change: This fall.
Speaker Change: Are the official helicopter company of the Ryder Cup, which as you may know us.
Speaker Change: Probably one of the biggest.
Biggest golf.
Speaker Change: Events in the industry can be best page long island, we're going to have actually eight helipads there.
Speaker Change: And it's something that's got I don't think I know.
Generate revenue, but also significant awareness for our products, especially if you think about our urban mobility strategy. You also may know that we.
Speaker Change: In cooperation with.
Speaker Change: Oceans Casino in Atlantic in Atlantic City opened the helipad there Ed.
Speaker Change: We've renewed our partnership for other stuff there to get people to buy a lot of very many live events. There. So a lot more of those kind of strategic partnerships with events at hotels and such I think are also going to be a little bit of a driver going forward and again really good to get people on aircrafts, you've never been done before.
Speaker Change: Thanks, I appreciate the color.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Our next question comes from Laura Lee with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Laura Lee: Hey, thank.
Laura Lee: Thank you for taking my question and congrats on a strong quarter.
Speaker Change: I guess my first question about the passengers Zachmann I think you mentioned strong results in Europe.
Speaker Change: So I was assuming that the restructuring are there the advantage that it's more on profitability, but it seems it helps the top line too. So I guess my question is what the revenue contribution from <unk> this quarter and it gets more of seasonality or obtainable.
Speaker Change: Obtainable gross after the reward.
Laura Lee: So I think we talk a little bit about this laura thanks for the question.
Speaker Change: The scripts.
Laura Lee: Just that.
We really think the restructuring helped provide better service for those travel agents and concierge is in Europe that generate a significant portion of the revenues there by connecting them much closer to the operational decision makers and just allowing them to confirm trips more quickly while still maintaining our great technology.
Laura Lee: And App and customer service focus more on the consumer as well. So we kind of grew the restructuring two channels and we're getting really really strong positive feedback from those corporate accounts over in Europe and so the second part of your question on just the scale of Europe in this quarter.
Laura Lee: About $6 million.
Laura Lee: Of revenue in Q1, and seasonally as you know the European business is heavily weighted towards Q3 into a lesser degree Q2.
Speaker Change: Okay. Okay got you.
Speaker Change: Yeah listen question as well like the capital allocation. So given the 100000 million in cash so how would you prioritize the capital allocation among others.
Speaker Change: Gross initiatives in buybacks and maybe potential M&A. So any interesting clients are looking at now.
Rob Wingo: A couple of things on that it's Rob speaking.
Rob Wingo: As we've said in the past our focus on M&A is on both tactical and strategic medical acquisitions things services that we can provide our existing customers.
That we think that we already have relationships with to kind of supercharge. Some of those acquisitions and then also relationships with hospitals that we may not have that some of these other targets may have as well again looking at single digit multiples.
Rob Wingo: And.
Rob Wingo: Hopefully also deals that are kind of accretive day. One those are that's really the laser focus on our acquisition strategy, but obviously organic growth our sales guys pounding the pavement getting on planes and mechanical and tapped our hospital after hospital and I'm happy with increased market share.
Rob Wingo: That they have in terms of buybacks, we do have an authorization.
And place.
Rob Wingo: At the same time.
Rob Wingo: Given our withhold to cover program.
Rob Wingo: Where we are.
Rob Wingo: Basically withhold shares.
Rob Wingo: In order to help employees pay their taxes.
Rob Wingo: Those shares and using that cash too.
Rob Wingo: <unk>.
Rob Wingo: Allow our employees to pay their taxes, but also retire shares has the same impact as the buyback so youll see youll see that this past quarter as well.
Rob Wingo: Okay got you.
Speaker Change: The color.
Bill Peterson: Thank you. Our next question comes from Bill Peterson with Jpmorgan. Your line is open.
Speaker Change: Hi, Good morning. This is <unk> on for Bill.
Speaker Change: I'm kind of curious how are bookings trending in may versus a year ago on the passenger side given all the uncertainties discussed.
Speaker Change: And have you begun to see any type of downtick in the number of trips and being taken to Newark from Blade Airport given some recent issues there as well.
Speaker Change: Thanks.
Speaker Change: I think it's well said, it's kind of early days.
Speaker Change: I think that Newark is actually.
Speaker Change: And that's something we're watching.
Speaker Change: Carefully we obviously hope it's transient.
Speaker Change: Positive and negatives to that on one hand, yes.
Les: Yes, Les you have less traffic to Europe in Newark, and reduced schedule there, but what it's also done is help utilization of JFK by pushing more to the JFK product and also given that our flagship lounge in terminal, where we have both arrivals and departures as on the west side, the greatest value for Blade airport product our piece.
Les: <unk> departing the west side going to JFK as opposed to the west side going to Newark. So I think you put all those in a blender hopefully.
Speaker Change: Is it.
Speaker Change: At least maintains where it's been overall for blade airport, but again, we'll see how it goes hopefully it's transient and also hopefully that people are not flying less because they're concerned about just airports.
Speaker Change: In general.
And then on your on your bookings question.
Speaker Change: We don't get a lot of.
Speaker Change: Month in advance bookings for this business is it's an on demand product.
Speaker Change: 24 hours, yes. So.
They look a little better than last year in terms of summer bookings, but I really don't think thats a hugely meaningful statistic.
Speaker Change: Okay I appreciate that color.
Speaker Change: Maybe also on your strategy to reposition aircraft closer to customers even.
Speaker Change: Even more this year can you talk about what specifically allows you to do that relative to peers is it maybe the size of your fleet.
Speaker Change: The owned and also contracted aircraft or is it something else.
Speaker Change: That's exactly what it is.
Speaker Change: We've talked about it.
Speaker Change: Added 50% more dedicated aircrafts this period versus the same period last year. So 10 additional dedicated aircraft between both our own fleet and the contracted fleet. So those are four wall aircrafts that we can position wherever wherever we need for the customer and also when you think about.
Speaker Change: Having 10 fewer than the prior year period.
Speaker Change: We're also stretched and sometimes maybe positioned in between two customers to be able to serve multiple customers.
Speaker Change: So even on the dedicated aircraft we had they themselves were repositioning more.
Speaker Change: It works, we can deliver the service either way, but we think it's a much better value proposition for our customer if we're able to put the aircraft's close to where theyre going to be departing for the vast majority of their trips which was their homebase.
Speaker Change: Great. Thank you so much for taking my questions.
Amy: Thank you Amy.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Our next question comes from Jon Hickman with Ladenburg Thalmann. Your line is open.
Amy: Okay.
Jon Hickman: Thanks for taking my question.
Amy: Was wondering if you could comment on.
Amy: And you made a brief comment about the electric vehicles the arrival of them.
Amy: Could you elaborate more on what youre seeing and kind of.
Amy: Timing.
Amy: And then are you planning on.
Amy: Any broad extensions.
Amy: On the passenger side as these vehicles.
Amy: Start arriving.
Amy: Yes, thanks for your.
Amy: Thanks for your question.
Amy: I think that.
Amy: The deployment of.
Amy: Vitol has been a moving target.
Amy: But that being said I do expect in kind of late 'twenty early 'twenty six we have great relationships with all the manufacturers were particularly impressed with the progress that <unk>, making.
Amy: Both here and abroad.
And I believe that.
These are terrific aircraft they can the beginning Bobby.
Amy: While the distance could be limited in passengers probably limited to around four I think leading to your question about new routes.
Amy: As we've always said.
Amy: VTOL, such as Jovi, and others, because they are acquired unlock the ability for communities to put new landing zones.
Amy: Because it's quite an emission free as you know that most of the Hela ports and airports that we have working are kind of off to the water.
Amy: Nearly desolate nonresidential areas. This will allow us to have more landing zones that are more convenient to more people than any pair of landing zones is it sound business. So we're quite excited about the kind of growth that we expect to happen.
Amy: <unk> deployed here, especially in the states and people see that they are quiet an emission free and we get all the stakeholders such as local legislators state legislators CFA feeling comfortable with putting these new landing zones and so I think it's definitely something we're looking forward to and with what are the fundamental.
Amy: One of the fundamental reasons.
Amy: In the first place is to facilitate this transition from rotorcraft to Vitol.
Amy: Okay.
Amy: Okay.
Speaker Change: And one last question could you update us on what's going on in the New Jersey site.
Amy: And it.
Amy: I think particularly about new Jersey, which.
Amy: Yes.
Amy: Are you operating now with them.
Amy: Are you talking about the Newport.
Speaker Change: Hello Port in New Jersey.
Speaker Change: Yes, I think our strategy has been very much.
Speaker Change: To collect the ability to.
Speaker Change: Manage for re light any Hello court that is available in our service area and so Newport was interesting. It is the closest new Hello, fortunate Manhattan <unk> been able to re live.
Speaker Change: Many many years it.
Speaker Change: It is predominantly used for charter right now.
Speaker Change: Companies and executives that live near there, but it's kind of I'll call. It.
Speaker Change: That doesn't cost us money to operate.
Speaker Change: And very little that is and I think that we want to keep doing that like oceans or building the oceans casino <unk> Newport.
Speaker Change: Other areas and actually it's a matter of hers, we're talking to.
Speaker Change: <unk> presidents, so I think youll see more of these in the margin, but again as I said in my previous answer I previously previous question. The big unlocks can accommodate details here.
Speaker Change: Okay. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Yeah.
Speaker Change: Thank you as a reminder to ask a question. Please press star one one.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from Ben <unk> with Lake Street Capital markets. Your line is open.
Ben: Alright, Thanks for taking my questions and congratulations on a good start to the year here first a couple of questions piggybacking on the repositioning in conversation.
Speaker Change: Given the significance of it seems to be.
Speaker Change: Having here I'm wondering if you can help us kind of quantify.
Speaker Change: Yes.
Speaker Change: So once your owned fleet is kind of fully operational and maintenance.
Speaker Change: Maintenance and utilized.
To the best of its abilities as that repositioning revenue is going to be effectively de minimis or is it still going to be kind of a.
Speaker Change: Sizable portion of your revenue base.
Speaker Change: You cut out there for a second but I think you were you were asking kind of two to <unk>.
Wanted by the impact of repositioning.
Greg: Greg Yes.
Greg: Sorry about that I hope this is better quantifying that does year over year repositioning dynamic and then also once your owned fleet is out of maintenance and.
Greg: That kind of.
Speaker Change: Level of utilization that you that you intend for it to have his repositioning revenue going to be de minimis or is it still going to be kind of a healthy percentage of your revenue base in the medical segment.
Speaker Change: So I mean, I think it's been repositioning part of life in our business. So.
Speaker Change: So there is always going to be an element of it what we're trying to do is strategically move the aircraft. So that the most likely trip profile, which for most of our customers around grip sending their own stack to go pick up in Oregon, and then return with it to the hospital the transplant.
Speaker Change: Center, Thats, our customer, but theres still going to be a lot of situations, where you're using a third party recovery group and so youre doing a one way and hopefully we have an airplane in that bucket.
Speaker Change: Our very significant scale lots of times EBIT.
Speaker Change: Neither the service different customer or.
Speaker Change: Through our third party network.
Speaker Change: But oftentimes you if you're in a remote location youre going to have to reposition and without one way. So it's always going to be a part of it in terms of the currency headwinds that we're seeing year over year.
Speaker Change: Robley.
Speaker Change: <unk> to mid single digit headwind, but there are a number of other factors in terms of just the flying patterns of our customers that are ever changing it can be different multiple months. So hard to really put a firm number in terms of exactly what it is but what we do know is that we're going to lap that period of time when we've made most of these.
Speaker Change: It moves once we get to the second half of this year does that help.
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker Change: Thanks for that well and my other question for you guys. Your.
Speaker Change: The conversation around around new excuse me more owned aircrafts coming into your fleet. This year seems to be pretty much unchanged from your comments on the prior couple of quarters, but I'm. Just wondering if you can comment on the degree to which the general tenor.
Speaker Change: Turner.
Speaker Change: Economy today, particularly around tariffs is impacting.
Speaker Change: Your thought process on bringing in.
Speaker Change: More owned owned aircraft here later this year.
Speaker Change: No impact to our thought process here, it's one of the things we love about this business.
Speaker Change: Non correlated both to the macro into end to things like this.
Speaker Change: But yes, you're right. Our center is kind of unchanged in terms our tone is unchanged in terms of how we're thinking about aircraft acquisitions. We do think it's likely that youll see a single digit number over the next 12 months to 18 months, but like we said nothing in process right now, though we will plan to be opportunistic and if we see opportunities like we saw at two <unk>.
Speaker Change: On April 1st where the.
Speaker Change: The acquisition of an aircraft can bring us a large new customer with a very quick payback.
Speaker Change: We'll be very fast to jump on that.
Speaker Change: Very good Thats helpful. Thanks for taking my question I'll get back in queue.
Speaker Change: Thanks, Ed.
Speaker Change: Thank you I'm showing no further questions at this time. This concludes the question and answer session and you may now disconnect everyone have a great day.
Speaker Change: Thank you.
Speaker Change: Youre welcome.
Speaker Change: Okay.
Speaker Change: [music].
Speaker Change: Okay.
Speaker Change: Yes.